FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. \u2014 A quiet morning walk turned into a terrifying ordeal for a 79-year-old woman and her dog Monday, after they were attacked by four pit bull mixes in a residential cul-de-sac off Riverland Drive. The woman\u2019s dog, Max, a 4-year-old Black Mouth Cur, was killed while trying to protect her.<\/p>\n
Surveillance video of the incident, obtained exclusively by Local 10 News, shows the brutal moments the dogs rushed toward Andrea Edwards and Max, knocking her to the ground and mauling both.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy mom\u2019s dog was on a leash and he saw them coming,\u201d said her son, Gordon Edwards. \u201cHe started protecting my mom. By the time she realized what was happening, they were all over.\u201d<\/p>\n
Andrea Edwards was bitten multiple times on both arms and remains in the hospital.<\/p>\n
\u201cMax died defending my mom,\u201d her son said. \u201cIf it wasn\u2019t for Max, my mom would be dead.\u201d<\/p>\n
Edwards also said his mother is traumatized and suffering from post-traumatic stress.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe keeps screaming in her sleep\u2014\u2018Max, run! No, get off me!\u2019\u2014just over and over,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The owner of the attacking dogs, Renex Dorvil, lives a street over. He told Local 10 News that he was at work during the incident and believed the dogs may have escaped through a hole in his fence. He speculated the victim\u2019s dog may have approached the fence before the attack.<\/p>\n
However, after being shown the surveillance video, Dorvil appeared shaken.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s really bad. I feel bad,\u201d he said. \u201cNow I see how this thing happened.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dorvil was asked if he was surprised to see his dogs act so violently, he replied, \u201cYes. That really surprised me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gordon Edwards said the neighborhood is devastated by the loss of Max, who was known and loved by local families.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll the kids in the neighborhood\u2014even the cats\u2014played with him,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Dorvil, visibly emotional, expressed remorse.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy mom is 83 years old\u2014if something like that happened to her, I would be very hurt,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m going to suffer the rest of my life because that hurt me. That\u2019s bad. I\u2019m really sorry.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to the family, the dogs involved in the attack were humanely euthanized by Broward County Animal Control. Dorvil is expected to face legal consequences in court.<\/p>\n
Gordon Edwards thanked the Fort Lauderdale Police Department for their response, adding that one officer stayed with his mother and helped calm her after the attack.<\/p>\n
\ud83c\udfe0 News From Your Neighborhood<\/p>\n
Copyright 2025 by WPLG Local10.com – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. \u2014 A quiet morning walk turned into a terrifying ordeal for a 79-year-old woman and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7627,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[249,251,250],"class_list":["post-7626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-lauderdale","tag-fort-lauderdale","tag-fort-lauderdale-headlines","tag-fort-lauderdale-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7626\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}